MARIETTA, Oh. – The Marietta College men's lacrosse made a furious comeback in the fourth quarter to force overtime, but gave up a sudden death score to Allegheny College, dropping a heartbreaking game to the Gators, 9-8, on Saturday (Mar. 18) afternoon. With the win Allegheny improves to 3-4 overall and the loss drops the Pioneers to 1-4.
"I'm continuously proud of the fight this group has and I'm excited for the direction we are going," said Marietta Head Coach
Ben Suchomma.
Allegheny struck first as Nick Gralewski got a shot past
Ben Millard (Chagrin Falls, Ohio/Kenston) just a few minutes into the game. Marietta answered quickly as
Nate Neal (Bethel Park, Pa./Bethel Park) scored from a
Colton Abate (McMurray, Pa./Peters Township) assist. The two teams battled through the snow flurries for the next several minutes, but the Gators scored with 3:27 remaining in the period. Minutes into the second period,
Chase Franklin (Pittsburgh, Pa./Mt. Lebanon) cut into the lead with a score. Allegheny would then go on to score four consecutive goals, three from Aiden D'Amato, extending the lead to 6-2. Franklin tacked on another score to stop the momentum. The score at halftime was 6-3, in favor of the Gators.
Marietta started to come back quickly in the third period when Abate sent a shot into the goal, off of a Neal assist, to cut the lead to two goals. J.P. Rakis extended the lead with two goals over the span of four minute to put Allegheny back with a four-goal cushion. Neal scored again with 4:14 remining in the third and the Gator lead was at three going ingo the fourth. The Pioneers shut the Gators out with some timely defense and slowly came back with some important goals. With under ten minutes of regulation, Neal lit up the scoreboard to cut the lead to two.
Chase Mullen (Cabot, Pa./Knoch) scored with four minutes left and the Pioneers were only down one. In the closing seconds, Franklin fired a desperation shot and it got past Gator goalie David Kraztenberg to tie the game.
In the sudden death overtime, Grawleski put an end to the game as he scored with 33 seconds remaining in the overtime period and the Gators would earn the victory, 9-8.
Millard played every minute in the net, he faced 48 shots, 36 of which were on goal, and made 27 saves in the game.
Neal and Franklin led the way with three goals apiece. Neal also has two assists, five groundballs, and a caused turnover.
Nathan Grover (North Canton, Ohio/Hoover) won 8-13 face-offs taken and led the team with seven groundballs.
Marietta will be back in action Wednesday (March 22) when they travel to take on Franciscan University, with the game scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m.
Fans can follow all of the Pioneer teams all year long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on Twitter and Instagram.
